First Read: The Democratic Race Isn't as Close as You Think It Is  —  First Read is a morning briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.  —  The Democratic race isn't as close as you think it is

White House Watch: Trump 42%, Clinton 37%  —  Donald Trump has now grown his lead over Hillary Clinton in Rasmussen Reports' first weekly White House Watch survey.  —  Trump earns 42% support to Clinton's 37% when Likely U.S. Voters are asked whom they would vote for if the presidential election were held today.

EgyptAir Flight 804 disappears  —  (CNN)EgyptAir Flight 804 heading from Paris to Cairo disappeared from radar with 69 people on board, the airline said.  —  The plane was flying at 37,000 feet when it disappeared shortly after entering Egyptian airspace, the airline tweeted.

Dying GOP Senator Apologizes to Muslims for Donald Trump  —  Bob Bennett spent his last days letting Muslims know how sorry he was that an Islamophobe had become his party's all-but-certain nominee.  —  Former GOP senator Bob Bennett lay partially paralyzed in his bed on the fourth floor of the George Washington University Hospital.

New poll finds 9 in 10 Native Americans aren't offended by Redskins name  —  Nine in 10 Native Americans say they are not offended by the Washington Redskins name, according to a new Washington Post poll that shows how few ordinary Indians have been persuaded by a national movement to change the football team's moniker.

House votes to restrict Confederate flag in national cemeteries  —  The House approved a Democratic proposal on Thursday to limit the display of the Confederate flag in national cemeteries.  —  A majority of Republicans rejected Rep. Jared Huffman's (D-Calif.) amendment to a spending bill …

R.I.P., GOP: How Trump Is Killing the Republican Party  —  Donald Trump crushed 16 GOP opponents in one of the most appalling, vicious campaigns in history.  His next victim?  The entire Republican Party  —  Indianapolis, Indiana, May 3rd, 2016, a little before 8:30 p.m. Texas …

This is how fascism comes to America  —  Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing columnist for The Post.  —  The Republican Party's attempt to treat Donald Trump as a normal political candidate would be laughable were it not so perilous to the republic.

‘60 Minutes’ Correspondent Morley Safer Dead At 84  —  NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Legendary “60 Minutes” correspondent Morley Safer has died at age 84.  —  His death comes just days after he formally retired after 46 seasons with the program.  —  WATCH: Morley Safer: A Reporter's Life

Theranos Voids Two Years of Edison Blood-Test Results  —  Company led by Elizabeth Holmes withdraws all Edison results from 2014 and 2015, issues tens of thousands of corrected blood-test reports  —  Theranos Inc. has told federal health regulators that the company voided two years of results …

Say what?  State lawmaker tries to add age, weight limits for strippers in Louisiana  —  BATON ROUGE, La. (WGNO) - A state representative proposed - then pulled - a measure in the state House Wednesday that would have required strippers in Louisiana to be no older than 28 and weigh no more than 160 pounds.

Libertarian Gary Johnson picks former Mass. governor for VP  —  Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has chosen former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld as his running mate, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.  —  Johnson, former governor or New Mexico, told the AP that Weld …

Shadow Banks Clinton Flags as Risky Put Millions Into Her Run  —  Clinton targets shadow banking in Wall Street regulatory plan  —  Blackstone, Centerbridge Partners among Clinton donors  —  Hillary Clinton has vowed to be tougher on Wall Street than any other presidential candidate …

Top US general defends Donald Trump  —  In a special web extra, General Michael Flynn, former head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) under President Barack Obama, discusses his informal role as an adviser to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Venezuela Maduro OAS: Latin American ‘traitor’ row escalates  —  The head of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, has accused the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of being “a traitor”.  —  In a series of Twitter posts addressed directly to Mr Maduro, Mr Almagro also called him a “petty dictator”.

Pope Francis To Employers Who Don't Offer Health Care: You Are ‘True Leeches’  —  Pope Francis is blasting employers who deny workers health insurance coverage, referring to them as “true leeches” who “live on the bloodletting of the people they make slaves to work.”

Trump's list snubs top legal conservatives  —  Donald Trump's list of 11 potential Supreme Court nominees seemed intended to reassure some of longtime conservatives still jittery about his populist-fueled candidacy.  However, what immediately caught the eye of many legal observers was the absence …

Bernie Sanders's base isn't the working class.  It's young people.  —  After Bernie Sanders crushed Hillary Clinton in the West Virginia primary last week, the national media was ready with an explanation: the white working class.  —  The New York Times and The Atlantic, for instance …

PC feminists misfire again, as fearful elite media can't touch Donald Trump  —  A boastful, millionaire New Yorker liked the company of beautiful women?  This is why NYT can't lay a glove on Trump  —  Zap!  If momentum were a surge of electromagnetic energy, Donald Trump against all odds has it now.

Uber to start testing self-driving car in Pittsburgh  —  Uber said Thursday that it plans to unleash its test car onto the streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania within the next few weeks.  —  The makers of the ride-hailing app said that a driver will be in its Ford Fusion while it is in self-driving mode.

White Nationalist Party Claims More of Its Members Are Now Trump Delegates  —  On May 10, Los Angeles attorney William Johnson resigned as a delegate for Donald Trump to the Republican National Convention after Mother Jones reported that Johnson is the leader of the white nationalist American Freedom Party.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Face Hurdle Not Seen in Modern History  —  Elections are always a game of positives versus negatives.  If you're the candidate, you do your best to talk yourself up and your opponent down.  This year's presidential brawl will test the depths of those downs and …